Professor Melinda Coughlan is an internationally recognised leader in diabetes and kidney research, Professor at Monash University, Head of the Glycation, Nutrition and Metabolism Laboratory, and a Board Director of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology. Over more than 20 years, she has built a translational research program spanning diabetic kidney disease, mitochondrial biology, the gut and kidney axis, and GLP-1 based therapeutics. Her experience includes an industry fellowship embedded within AstraZeneca’s renal research team and collaborations with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. She is passionate about connecting mechanistic discovery, human biospecimen research and industry expertise to advance new biomarkers and therapies for people with diabetes and kidney disease.

Matthew Watt is Professor of Physiology and Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His research seeks to unravel complex metabolic and endocrine regulation to support new therapies for obesity-related diseases, including type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cancer. His laboratory collaborates nationally and internationally and uses advanced metabolic, lipidomic and proteomic tools, including mass spectrometry and real-time metabolic assessment in cells, tissues and mice. He also works with industry partners, including Eli Lily and CSL, to translate pre-clinical discoveries into patient-focused solutions.

Dr. Peng Li’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying lipid metabolism and lipid droplet biology. Since 1999, she has studied the Cell death-inducing DFF45-like effector (CIDE) family of lipid droplet-associated proteins. Her work identified a previously unrecognized mode of lipid droplet growth mediated by lipid droplet–lipid droplet contact and fusion, a process regulated by CIDE proteins. She has made seminal contributions to elucidating the cellular and physiological functions of CIDE proteins, advancing our understanding of lipid droplet dynamics and the molecular basis of metabolic diseases, including obesity, fatty liver disease, and lipodystrophy. Dr. Li’s work has been published in leading journals, including Cell, Nature, Cell Metabolism, and Journal of Cell Biology. Dr. Peng Li has also contributed to scientific publishing and leadership, serving as an editor of Life Metabolism and as a member of the editorial board of Cell Metabolism. She has served as President of Zhengzhou University (Zhengzhou, Henan, China) since 2022, after being on the faculty of Tsinghua University in 2005. She also previously served as Director of the Division of Life Sciences at the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Dr. Li was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015 and was named a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2016 in recognition of her contributions to the advancement of science in developing countries.

Professor Brian Drew is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow, and former NHF Future Leader Fellow. He is head of the Molecular Metabolism and Ageing Laboratory at the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute, Australia, where he is also co-lead of the Obesity & Cardiometabolic Disease Program. His lab’s research focuses on engaging cutting-edge technologies including systems genetics, CRISPR, lipid nanoparticle therapeutics and phenomics to identify novel diagnostics and therapeutic targets for diseases related to ageing, mitochondrial function and degeneration.